Latest / Beyond Leadership - Adopting a Coaching Mindset / #02 - The power of Picking Up The Phone Is In The Listening
Transcript
- Michael Hoffman: Well, good. Why don't we get started? I'll give a little introduction and then we'll jump in, if you're ready. Julienne Ryan: Okay. Michael Hoffman: Oh my goodness. Welcome to Beyond Leadership, Adopting a Coaching Mindset. In this series, our conversations aren't about biography or polished advice. They're about how decisions are made in the real world when the pressure is on. We'll anchor on one situation where the path wasn't obvious and explore what goes on in the mind of a leader when confronted with real tradeoffs, imperfect information, and the need to move anyway. This podcast is brought to you by Pier Plaza, human help instantly. Julienne Ryan works in the messy space where communication actually breaks down. She spent years in HR watching organizations spend real money on lawyers to clean up situations that probably could have been handled with better listening. In one case, she did something no one expected. She picked up the phone and called the person directly. I want to understand how she decided to do that, what was at risk, and what she heard once she finally stopped scrolling through the noise and just listened. Julienne, welcome to our program and thank you very much for being with us today. Julienne Ryan: Well, thank you very much. It's a pleasure and I'm looking forward to talking to you about that incident or that experience that has stayed with me. And part of it grew out because you give excellent thinking prompts before you organized these sessions, and I was reviewing many different stories, and I thought this was a pivotal moment, not because of its immensity. Its power was in its simplicity because it was representative of so many things that went wrong sometimes with our communications, with our management and their staff, and what had happened. And this was a very simple situation. Michael Hoffman: So, if I could interrupt, let's set the scene for our listeners so they know where we are right now. Julienne Ryan: I was working with a non for profit. We were dealing with a lot of challenges, a lot of stress on a daily basis, and unfortunately some personality clashes on occasion, or missing of objectives, people having different aspirations to what was important in situations. And like many situations, it didn't go well and the decision was to part company. And unfortunately, in many situations, attorneys are called in to protect the interest of both sides. And my boss had been working on this for some time, but it was one of these cases that had not been resolved for whatever reason. And then when I grew into my role under him, he decided to hand me over all these lingering moment cases and saying you can take these and figure out how to resolve them so we can come to closure, etc. And that was the beginning. Michael Hoffman: And then you realized this wasn't really a legal issue. This was something else. Julienne Ryan: Yes and no. What I decided in that moment, and I know it's always a risk when you have attorneys involved on both sides, both well intentioned, both committed to protecting interests, was to take a leap of faith because not everything gets translated into notes and into the file folders or whatever we were using to capture the experience. I had not known of this person. I had not dealt with them firsthand. I had not witnessed. So, I was getting everything by hearsay. Michael Hoffman: And what did that case revolve around? Julienne Ryan: The person needed to be protected if a case came to light or if a situation was reintroduced. The person was a public facing individual. They just wanted the assurance ultimately that the organization would still recognize their relationship and support them in there, so they weren't going to be as a one man show out there in the public space. But I didn't know that till I decided to say, what harm could come of a simple phone call to check in to see how they were doing and say, could you share your perspective? What's really preventing things from moving forward? Because I thought there was a lot of good intention, but it was stuck. Michael Hoffman: And no one had done that. No one had thought to just give the person a call. And is that because of litigation reasons or what do you think? Julienne Ryan: I think everyone always, and we're not different than any other organization at that time, we are always managing risk and perception and good intentions. We had gotten guidance and my boss had been involved early time, but somewhere in the passing of time the human interaction part had ceased to be. Michael Hoffman: Before you made that call, what were you telling yourself about the risk? Were you considering that? Were you considering both sides of whether... Julienne Ryan: I was considering the risk to me to call one day and say if this doesn't go well, you know, it's a simple question. Is there anything we missed on your behalf? So it wasn't being contentious. It was just asking a curiosity question, but there was a risk to saying, am I going to muck up the works basically by doing that and picking up the phone and circling around known practices, things that every organization does on a regular basis? Am I going to be the one disturbing it? But it was curiosity and thinking maybe there's something else that hasn't been shared or hasn't been shared correctly. Michael Hoffman: Hmm. And so you decided to listen to this person. And what was the outcome of that? Julienne Ryan: They outlined an ask that they needed that support and to just include that in their documentation should an event come to pass, should they need to circle back, that that support would be there. And it closed shortly afterwards. And it always just stayed with me, the active dialogue of active listening and context and not assuming we have all the answers all the times. And it's stayed with me in different parts of my work with coaching as well as the work I do with story work for business, why I start to use that in many situations I had already applied in my work because it is about developing context. We all are the theater directors in our own stories. We write the scripts. We write the dialogue. We give the personality. But a lot of times we're out of context. We don't have all the facts and figures. They have a lot on their plate. They're relying on so many people to be the communicators, to communicate up to them, but everybody's listening with their own filters and their own biases. Michael Hoffman: I wish I had a nickel for every time I've advised someone to simply pick up the phone and call the person they're having a misunderstanding or a rough patch with. Text simply has no tone. A well intentioned “why do you think you did that?” can easily land as “why do you think you did that?” to the person on the receiving end. Calling someone is objectively simple. With Siri, you don't even have to dial. And yet, we hesitate. We've become so concerned about disturbing others or interrupting a process, in this case, that we freeze at the thought of it. The spontaneous phone call has been replaced by the cautious WhatsApp message, just in case we might intrude, even with our closest friends. Something is shifting. We're slowly losing ease in human contact, even with people who matter greatly to us. Someone told me recently that young people sometimes avoid going to the supermarket with their parents lest they run into friends because they wouldn't know how to handle the interaction spontaneously. That's not a technology problem. That's a human one reinforced by institutionalized technology. And Julienne's approach, while courageous according to today's conventions, is how we used to regularly handle problems just a generation ago. So I'm wondering, were you coaching before this incident or did you become a coach afterwards? What is the order of things? Julienne Ryan: I was coaching internally to employees and manager when things were needed, conversations about how to work with performance, how to work with staff. So I was doing it as part of my role, and then later I started to really devote my energies to it and also looked at the neuroscience of storytelling and why it works and why it grabs people's attention and why metaphors matter to teach and disrupt our biases in our head. Michael Hoffman: I know you've used the line “looking for stories.” I remember you saying that. And what does that mean when you're looking for a story? Julienne Ryan: I'm looking for how that person is viewing their environment, or the group perhaps if they're part of a team, etc. How are they viewing their environment? We all revert back to the old story lines. Who's the hero in my story? Who's the villain? What are the factors? And part of the coaching sometimes is to get people to rewrite the script in a different way and recast it and ask some compelling questions that takes people on a new path to listen and learn. The work I do in storytelling when I do workshops with teams and management is to give them a foundational tool that can listen to each other in a fresh way, even have some fun, which is part of the starting block. If we can find one fact or a couple of things that we can rebuild a foundation that surprises, disrupts us, then we're letting the foundation form so we can do more important work. You can't solve big issues or build trust about things if we don't have a connecting point. So it started as a budget friendly tool that I was doing naturally and then finding out, wow, this is why it's working and this is how we can build trust and change the narrative about how we're approaching our environment and our work and also our teams. So it sounds so simple, but it's been amazing what can come to pass. Michael Hoffman: Yeah, I really like the idea of having fun. I think bringing that up, I was having a discussion with one of my clients this morning and I noticed that his way of speaking to his direct reports was pretty serious. And I asked, “Do you ever mix in a little bit of fun?” And we were laughing in our conversation together and I said, “Do you see how disarming that is when we're laughing together? Is that one of the ways, is that a tool that you can use in your communications?” Because we tend to just want to get to the facts and press instead of a bit of levity and space and listening. And it sounds like you've been using that, you've been leveraging those tools to increase the quality of your communication with people, and as you did in this case where you said, “Hey, I'm just going to talk to this person. What could possibly go wrong?” Well, a lot of things could go wrong if you're not trained at that. But you are trained. You know what you're doing. So the risk was diminished in some way. And you knew the risk going in there. So it wasn't out of naivete that you entered into that discussion. You really, I'm sure, gauged how you needed to speak with this person and not get into any trouble that way. Julienne Ryan: Well, here's some important parts. The methodology I'm trained in, and I've mentioned I have a colleague, Jerome Doy, is the narrative methodology. It's a framework that's very structured and timed, and there are some guidelines of how we speak to each other and give feedback. So that alone is golden when we look at working with teams, the ability to work with our words and give feedback and appreciation in real time, not through text, not through an email, but real time. The second thing is your comments prompted me to remember many sessions I had where there were some light hearted moments. There were some interesting commonalities to development, but there were also moments where somebody shared a compelling backstory of their background because they felt safe, heard, and listened to. And once we were able to move past the emotionality, the bond was stronger and the connection. But what first had to happen is watching that respect was going to be shared and given, that listening was going to be given, and then that person could take a leap of faith and say, well, this is important to understand about me and how I work and why and what's informed my experience. So my responsibility in that situation is to show the group that it's okay, not to rush them, not to talk over them, not to joke things out, but to listen and be there. And then like you discussed about music, it has its own rhythm. So to trust the process and give it time and space. So many times when we have compelling things happen to us, we want to rush through it, ignore it, pretend it didn't exist, but it's a tool that we can use our listening for to create some safety and appreciation. And then what happens? We start to share and think differently as well. So I think these deceptively simple practices can really yield an abundance of goodwill and functionality. And there's a productive upside to all of this that I've seen happen with groups and teams, with our clients. Michael Hoffman: There's a lot to unpack here. What stands out to me in what Julienne is saying is the impact of giving someone space and listening with real intent. When you take time to understand their backstory, you build trust and empathy and create the conditions for them to speak honestly. It also slows the tempo of the conversation. Instead of rushing over their perspective to get to your turn, the nuances emerge and you gain a much richer, more grounded understanding. And this isn't just theory. This really works in practice if we have the patience and willingness to really want to understand the truth instead of just our perception. When you think about it, how difficult is it to listen? And yet it is difficult because so often we're thinking about what the other person is saying and building up a rebuttal. And really the art of listening is to stop building up rebuttals and really listen. Julienne Ryan: You've met my husband from Ireland, which he's my academy. I may have studied narrative, but I'd love to tell you it's not all perfect 1 800 number, you know this. I have a husband. Well, let me tell you, it's been a lifelong PhD training about habits, and it's truly the people they're closest to is always most challenging. We're great with strangers sometimes, but we have to have patience and not only the humor of a lifeline of learning and learning from my mistakes and saying I am my own customer. It's also paying attention to inspiration on the outside. And most recently, if anybody in your global audience has been watching the progress of the Walk for Peace that was conducted by monks who reside in Texas, who went from Texas to DC, and what I've been watching is after this whole walk was finished, the little vignette of them listening and being present to people in communities, strangers, all types of humans, young, old, different challenges, but their whole presence of being there for that individual in that moment. And what I admired about them is so... and I'm from New York, you know, we were always looking around, see what's coming next, steps, have a meeting. If they chose, these monks, if they chose to stop and interact individually, it was like nobody else existed for those few minutes or seconds and then they moved on. And I was thinking wow, we could really use that as a thinking and behavior prompt of being. And how many times do we rush where you're on the phone or we're seeing the instant message come up, or you have so many things I'm sure your clients are juggling, and how many times do we get in trouble because we rushed through something and we didn't pay attention to the dialogue and what we thought was being said or heard, and we paid a price afterwards. Michael Hoffman: Absolutely. And I would say that I don't know the percentage, but there is a large percentage, I think, of the value that we as coaches bring to our clients by just getting them to stop. Just stop, think, not do. Think. Think about what you're doing. I think it was Einstein that said, if I have to solve a problem in an hour, I would spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes solving it, because we tend to spend 55 minutes solving the problem before we've spent five minutes thinking about it. And the truth is that we're in such a rush, as you say, to try to fix things instead of really getting down to root causes and understanding, and that takes stopping. And it's just so hard for people to just simply stop and take some time. So I totally get you there. Julienne Ryan: The essence, it's the listening. It's also the act of being seen and heard. Notice I didn't say agreed with sometimes, but seen, heard, acknowledged. And that experience can be so incredible whether somebody's in a coaching situation, in a work situation, in a therapy situation. Not judging, not fixing, acknowledging. And then sometimes the answers are hiding in plain sight. Sometimes the right questions can help. And you also reap an abundance when you take the time. When I've seen leaders who took the time to meet somebody and just ask some simple questions, they walk away a little more informed and a little more aware of maybe there's other things they need to ask questions about or think about. So yeah, creating that space for people will share and not just give you a curated response that you think you want. Michael Hoffman: So, how do you think that your phone call in this situation changed the way either you think about things or the way the organization thought about things? Julienne Ryan: I'm not going to over glamorize that part or give it more thing. I think it changed how I thought in saying if this happened here, how many times did I or somebody miss another opportunity because we took not the easy way, the most efficient way or the responsible way, when we don't stop to ask is there more I need to explore and speak to somebody directly and just pay attention. Michael Hoffman: Yeah, because you could have put that on the lawyer pile. You could have said, “Okay, this one there, this is too litigious and I'm going to leave that here.” But you thought, “You know what? I wonder if this person has been heard,” and all you were doing was calling to listen and that opened doors. Did that solve the problem? Julienne Ryan: It did. Actually it was the beginning of solving the problem and creating some dialogue that ended up resolving in a very equitable and positive manner. So that was also a good example for me to take forward and put in my file of think about this the next time you were writing the dialogue and writing people off or writing situations off or labeling. Michael Hoffman: Okay. So perhaps there was some influence that appeared after that so that people wouldn't just quickly run to the lawyers and do it that way. Julienne Ryan: We, you know, and I was trying to save money for that. I was on a mission. I had very little budget for anything else. So I was like, we got to figure out a way to change this a bit. Michael Hoffman: Yeah, absolutely. It's interesting. Culturally, there is a very large difference between Europe and the United States when it comes to that because there is no real suing here. People don't do that. Julienne Ryan: Mhm. Michael Hoffman: So, and that way we don't have to pay the lawyers and that way we don't have to increase the contracts. You know, it's a chain of events. Julienne Ryan: It's seeped into every part of our environment, from the hiring, the recruiting process, even telling... it's so pervasive. Even in the... we have tracking systems now, but we whittle down the language that we use. We guide people not to talk directly to the candidates, to give them feedback, because we're so nervous about everything. So we live our life trying to mitigate risk in every shape or form. And I mean, I did that person guiding others, so I don't want to make light of the profession or what I did, but it's unfortunate. It's also unfortunate. Michael Hoffman: Yeah. Well, on the other side here, when somebody does something bad, then you don't really have a recourse either. So there here there's a negative situation. I've been in that situation many times where somebody has wronged me or my company and there's no way to fight that. Julienne Ryan: Oh okay. Michael Hoffman: You know, so it goes both ways, I have to say. Tell me a little bit more about the framework that you use, the narrative framework. Julienne Ryan: The narrative framework is based in part from a counseling methodology, but it's based on the art of listening and being present for the person and being able to speak of their experiences in first term, not as reporting back or putting themselves in third person, reporting from a distance. So that methodology does help quite a bit. We also say, the methodology that they use is that this is a space. We've created a space that's unique. We may talk about the same topic in other environments, but we will never be able to create an identical experience because each act of listening and sharing is a unique experience. So the narrative methodology refers to this listening space like as a vessel. You have a glass. When you're pouring water in it, the water is going to take the shape of the glass. So your experience coming in and my experience coming in is going to shape our conversation, and to kind of build that into how we're communicating with each other and what our influences are. We also guide people how they prepare for listening, which is another important part. Is it psychological? Have you been fed? Is your stomach grumbling? Did you get off a very contentious call? And you are bringing that in, whether you realize it or not, into this situation. So it's also about checking and having yourself in a mental green room for a few minutes to say, “What am I bringing into my next interaction?” About a year ago, I was going into an organization to do a training workshop and I could hear, ironically it was lawyers again, I don't know why, but screaming at the top of her lungs in the next office across the hallway. And I kept doing the workshop... she was one of the partners and I thought I really hope that's not the partner that's missing, and sure enough it was. And it changed all the spells in the room. But that happens. That's the typical part. And I can now talk about a year later and say, well that was fun and interesting and not something I want to replicate on a regular basis, but what we bring into the room matters. So in personal relationships, we all said it was great to work from home when it was COVID sometimes, but there was a lot to be said with commuting, that we needed to decompress for a while or walk or do other things between our work mind and our personal mind. So finding patterns in your own behaviors and doing the brave thing of asking for feedback, like real feedback, from people you trust, saying, “Where do I bring benefit and where do I get in my own way?” Michael Hoffman: We'll continue with Julienne Ryan right after this message from our sponsor, Peer Plaza. Ever wish you could just talk to someone who's been where you are? Not a chatbot, not ChatGPT or Gemini. A real human who gets it. That's PeerPlaza. Human help instantly. Whether you need a career coach, a leadership mentor, or someone to help you navigate a tough transition, Peer Plaza connects you with vetted professionals ready to help right now. Browse profiles, watch intro videos, and book a session just like that. Visit peerplaza.com, because the best advice still comes from real people. Welcome back to Beyond Coaching, Adopting a Coaching Mindset, with our guest today, Julienne Ryan. Making a habit of asking for feedback is one of the best things I think that one can do because let's face it, we're so oblivious to our actions most of the time. Getting feedback from people to say, “Hey, in general, what can I do better in our relationship or in the meeting?” and habitually asking that enables people to give you the honest feedback that you want. Because if you ask just every once in a while, no one's going to give you the honest answer. But if you repeatedly ask often, then people understand, hey, this is not just going through the motions. This is really John or Carol or Michael asking for feedback and he really wants to know about this. So be frank and honest and open about it. And I will tell you that even with my interns I will ask for feedback about my behavior and my work with them because it's super important to get that feedback. And you brought up a very good point about that because we have all these wonderful tools at our disposal and they're increasing and they're giving us permission to have less contact if we let that happen. So we have our mobile phones, we have our text, we have email, we have instant messaging, very convenient, very helpful, but things get lost in translation. Now we have AI that we can help craft our answers and things, but we're losing that human talking with a human right now. Not everything we've said is picture perfect to the syntax. I flubbed a word or phrase, you hesitated at the beginning, but that's also the music of having a live interaction. And we write our own... we apply a voice when we read a text and it could be the most well intentioned comment or feedback. Like let's say, take something, “we need to do this now.” If I'm having a bad day and I'm up to my ears and my boss said that, I'm like whoa, you clearly don't know what I have on my plate. You could react and you could spend a lot of time in your own churn, but sometimes picking up the phone and having an interaction and getting comfortable that we can't script everything, and that's the beauty and that's the challenge of live conversations. You can't rehearse everything. You have to be able to take a chance and listen. Michael Hoffman: So you're bringing up something really... it's another conversation. We won't have time for it today. But I will say that when you bring up AI, think about what's happening, how we are using that as another filter. So first the filter of not being in the same room, then the filter of maybe not even seeing each other with texting or whatever it is, and now the filter of language where you take what you want to say, you give it to ChatGPT, it makes it sound like you are a scholar and you send that off, and then that person feels like, oh, well, this is very highfalutin language. I have to use highfalutin language back. And they go to their ChatGPT, and before you know it ChatGPT is talking to ChatGPT. Julienne Ryan: Yes. Michael Hoffman: And there is some clarity in that but there's also the complete loss of seasoning. Julienne Ryan: Right. There is a complete loss of personality. So we're going to this very neutral land. I'm not certain that that's such a great thing for us, especially when you think about it, that means that people will be more afraid to have conversations because they can't use the ChatGPT in the conversation. So how articulate are they in real life? Part of life is also making mistakes, and I don't mean egregious things, but it's the risk in making mistakes and adapting and adjusting as you go. Same way that ChatGPT learned. You told it was wrong when you asked it a question and then it got better, but it's only drawing on what it knows. Michael Hoffman: Yeah. Julienne Ryan: And the experience and imitating you. I did a whole talk on this two years ago. It was about relationships and it was like somebody who was just yesing you sometimes and he would lie to you just to make you happy. So, you know... Michael Hoffman: Sounds like GPT. Julienne Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. So, I think you're bringing up very good points, the chemistry. So think about the positive side and say here's where my opportunity is, but if we're going... our relationships are creative endeavors. They're a work in progress all the time. And we don't want to let that muscle become weak and we don't want to lose our courage to be able to take a risk and reach out to somebody and chat with them or have a meeting which relies on us without having everything strictly regimented in every interaction we do. So there's risk. There's risk just like as a creative person where you started your career. There was a risk that putting a personal composition or putting your own interpretation of how it was going to be received, but you wouldn't know that unless you took that chance to say I have something to offer. I would like to have my voice raised in how I experienced that music, that composer, this collaboration we're doing. And I think that's why it's served you so well in your work. It's showing up in everything you do. Michael Hoffman: Well, Julienne, you've been talking about risk and you've been eating your own dog food as well. You've been taking those risks. Julienne Ryan: Thank you. Michael Hoffman: I don't know if you're familiar with that analogy. Julienne Ryan: I am, but I haven't heard that in a while. Like, okay. Well, I don't even have a pet, but okay. I'll work with that one. Michael Hoffman: So, well, my point is that not only do you dish it out, but you can take it too. You have been taking all kinds of risks and it's much appreciated and thank you for sharing all of that with us today on our podcast. And I hope that the weather is not too cold in New York these days. Julienne Ryan: I'm looking, not too bad. Michael Hoffman: Not too bad. Okay. Julienne Ryan: Here's the expression. When things go a little awry and you make adjustments, people will appreciate the act of working on things, being accountable and honest, and then go back and use my phrase when something goes sideways. I will use this for something somewhere someday and take it forward. Michael Hoffman: I want to thank Julienne Ryan for being my guest on this week's podcast, my team at ScaleYOU, and thank you for listening. If you're getting value from these conversations, please make sure to follow or subscribe wherever you're listening. It helps more thoughtful leaders find the show. And if one episode stands out, share it with someone who's in the middle of a real decision. That's where these conversations tend to matter most. I'm executive coach Michael Hoffman. See you in the next one.